Tuesday, April 28, 2015

My husband bought me the compilation of these books. There was no way I was going to pay
$3/e-book. And I’m glad I didn’t,
because there were a few I didn’t particularly care for and would have been
upset if I’d paid $3 for it.

I won’t go through and review every single story, but I’ll
talk about the ones I liked and didn’t like.
I really didn’t like the “What Really Happened in Peru” story. First, I could tell that it had been
collaborated on. Second, it was all
jumbled and hard to follow. And thirdly, YOU DON’T FIND OUT WHAT REALLY
HAPPENED! Seriously? And that was what started off this book….do I
need to tell you that I then had pretty low expectations for the rest?

I did really enjoy “Vampire, Scones, and Edmund Herondale”
because who doesn’t love reading about Herondale boys? And it was actually
interesting because it was during the time they were trying to pass the
Accords. This was the first interesting
story of the Bane Chronicles.

The Midnight Heir was one of my favorites because it brings
back all the characters we love from The Infernal Devices series – Tessa, Will,
Jem, and Magnus. If you have not finished
reading TID series, don’t read this book! It will have a major spoiler for
you. I loved seeing all of them grown up
and as parents now. Definitely a must
read.

“The Rise of the Hotel Dumort” and “The Fall of the Hotel
Dumort” were meh to me. I didn’t love
them and didn’t hate them, they were just there. Interesting just based on importance to the series,
but the stories themselves weren’t that great.

I enjoyed “Saving Raphael Santiago”. Raphael is actually a very interesting character. His family is very religious, so watching his
inner turmoil as he now has a damned soul is very captivating. I actually liked the relationship between him
and Magnus as well. Overall a pretty
good story.

“The Last Stand of the New York Institute” was a good read
too because it finally tells the story of watching Valentine come to
power. You see all the characters from
The Mortal Instrument Series within Valentine’s Circle….and finally, we got the
full story on when Jocelyn brought Clary to Magnus. That was by far my favorite part of that
story.

The hardback book had an additional bonus story “The
Voicemail of Magnus Bane”. It was kind
of funny…but also a little long and obnoxious.
If you just read the ebooks, you really aren’t missing anything in
this. It’s just a bunch of angry
voicemails. I think Simon’s voicemail
was my favorite…but the rest, specifically from Isabelle, were mostly
annoying. If you have the hardback, read
it. If you didn’t get the hardback, you’re
not missing much.

Overall the stories were good. I’m still very glad I didn’t buy each
individually since there were several I didn’t like. Honestly, after reading the first two, I
probably wouldn’t have continued buying them…and if that were the case, I would
have missed a few good ones. I think
Cassandra Clare should stop milking this series and write something new. I know
we all love this world and she’s created characters we love, but she’s going to
get to the point where people are sick of it or she’s going to do something to
a character that we won’t forgive her for – I think of the epilogue to
Clockwork Princess – I still refuse to acknowledge that it exists.